Google fined 150 million euros in France for unclear conditions

Google has been fined 150 million euros by the French trade watchdog. The internet company is said to have set unclear conditions about the advertising platform and arbitrarily disadvantaged companies.

The fine was imposed by the Autorité de la Concurrence, the regulator that monitors fair trade practices. Google has “abused its dominant position” and arbitrarily treated websites that place Google ads on their site by not consistently applying the terms.

The rules that Google imposed on advertisers were vague, the Authority writes. As a result, Google always had the last word when it came to interpreting and changing it. Moreover, Google applied those rules differently each time. Some companies interpreted the same rules differently than others. For example, certain websites could suddenly no longer use Google ads. The regulator says that 90 percent of the search engine market in France is in the hands of Google, and the market for online advertisements “probably more than 80 percent”. That is precisely why, according to the regulator, the company should have drawn up extra clear rules.

The regulator says that in addition to paying the fine, Google must also draw up clearer rules for the future. This concerns the rules that advertisements and platforms must comply with, but also the procedures for banning accounts. The regulator also orders Google to create procedures that make it easier to detect violations of the rules. The internet company will also be required to provide annual training to employees. With this, teams should be better informed about the rules on the Google Ads platform. Google must annually report to the regulator on how many complaints have been filed, how many accounts and websites have been banned, and what the reasons were for the ban.

Google tells Reuters it will appeal the fine. The company has been fined several times in Europe. At the beginning of this year, the company was fined 1.49 billion euros for violating competition rules on the advertising platform AdSense. Google achieved a turnover of 36.5 billion euros in the third quarter of 2019. The fine of 150 million is 0.4 percent of the company’s quarterly revenue.